


a wider horizon (more clearly seen)

by Damkianna



Category: Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Character Death Fix, Extra Treat, F/F, Fix-It, Gen, Hints of Nyx Harper/Two | Portia Lin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 17:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8411044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: Nyx sees one thing coming at just the right moment—and everything changes. (Fix-it AU of the last two episodes of S2.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mlraven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mlraven/gifts).



> I hope this manages to strike the right notes of found family, women doing things, and "anything about Nyx" for you, mlraven! Your enthusiasm for this show in your letter was a delight—I only wish I could be sure I'd done it justice. :)
> 
> Title adapted from a quote from Hal Borland about October, appropriately enough.

 

 

Nyx sees it coming.

How can she not? The probabilities are only approximate like this, alone, without the drugs or the link or the Seers' machinery; her mind was a computer once, but it isn't anymore. Her calculations are inexact, and there are no decimal places. But she knows Two, by now. She knows Two, and Hansmeed, showing her that knife, has given her the data she needs to see what might happen next.

There's a dim shadow spinning off one way, Two striding forward past Hansmeed so far that a sword flashes out in response—five percent chance, or maybe seven. And another, light as cobweb, Five taking half a step but Three catching her arm, Five losing her chance to interrupt before Ryo acts. Three percent at most.

But the middle of the bell curve piles up so solid it's like it's already happened, like Nyx is just remembering it: blades quick as light, as thought, and blood. Two taking action, because Two always does, shouting _Four_ like the man sitting on that throne is still crew, will still listen—

Except he won't. Four is gone. Ishida Ryo might remember being Four, but what defined Four was forgetting Ishida Ryo. Negative space. And Two isn't Ishida Ryo's captain, can't command him—no one can. Ishida Ryo is the emperor.

Nyx blinks, and it's _now_ again: Ryo is standing in front of his throne, about to ask a question, and Hansmeed is about to answer it. Two hasn't moved, hasn't even opened her mouth.

"Emperor," Nyx says instead, before anyone else can say a word, and feels the probabilities change.

 

*

 

She kneels. After a second, so does Two, Six, Five; and then Three, even though bending a knee to anybody like that makes him grimace in distaste.

And Ishida Hiro follows them.

The Seers don't know Ishida Ryo. Not personally. They're basing their calculations on historical data, kings of other worlds. And perhaps their projections suggest two or three possibilities, almost equally likely. Perhaps Hansmeed is bluffing, trying to tip the balance, trying to change what they see coming.

If he is, it doesn't work. They still die—and Nyx closes her eyes so she doesn't have to watch it again as it happens for real.

Milo died like that. Down to the part where the blade that did it belonged to Four, Nyx thinks, even if he's Ryo now.

It's only fair.

So the Seers die. Ryo's stepmother dies. But Ishida Hiro is kneeling on the floor with the rest of them. The guard behind him has to reach down, to grab his hair and pull his head back before the blow can fall; and that isn't what Ryo wanted. He wanted it sudden, sudden and certain and inevitable, like fate instead of murder.

Four had liked to strike that way at times, when they sparred. It was part of the reason Nyx had frustrated him so much—parrying him on instinct, seeing him coming before he'd even started to move. Perhaps it had been muscle memory, picking up the swords and doing what felt familiar: the one way in which he'd been Ishida Ryo all along.

And it doesn't matter anymore, except it does. It's data.

"Your Imperial Majesty," Nyx says again, because Two won't say it fast enough. But she can't do the rest, so she reaches for Two's wrist and squeezes. Orders coming from Two would have been a mistake; but negotiations won't be. Captain to emperor—leader to leader.

And Two doesn't like watching people die. Especially not when she can stop it.

Ryo gestures toward the guard, and the blade comes to a stop against Ishida Hiro's throat—against it, but not pressing in, not cutting.

"Don't," Two says, because she always gets straight to the point when she can. "Give him to us."

Ryo raises an eyebrow, something smug and amused lurking at the corner of his mouth. "And why would I do that," he says slowly, "when you've just proven to me what you can do for a prince of Zairon, given the chance?"

"For a rightful prince," Two says. "Besides, you wanted the throne. He doesn't." She raises an eyebrow right back. "Or were you intending to leave me a crewmember short?"

Ryo doesn't answer; he stands there and looks at his brother, still kneeling there swallowing against a swordblade, with a considering expression.

"The problem isn't him," Two adds. "It's whoever would try to use him against you. And they can't do that if they can't find him. We have the blink drive, Ryo—no one in this universe can catch us."

Something flickers across Ryo's face then, just before he waves his hand at the guard and Ishida Hiro is allowed to safely lower his head. Nyx can't quite parse it in the moment, but that's all right.

It's still data.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"I can fight," Ishida Hiro says to them, once they're back on the _Raza_. He looks out of place in the ship's mess. It's clean, familiar—even scenic, with the screens on the walls displaying a snowy mountain range at sunrise. But not exactly a fitting setting for a man who's still wearing imperial silk.

And he looks out of place in the space that Four—Ryo—left behind. He doesn't sit with his arms crossed; he doesn't have the breadth in his shoulders that Ryo did, or the height. Which is probably why Three looks him up and down and then rolls his eyes. "Yeah," Three says, "I'm shaking in my boots."

"Not like Ryo," Hiro concedes. "But I can fight. I know what you did for me in there, and I want you to understand that you won't regret it."

There's no distress in his face, even now that he's talking about his own brush with death; but then he was the emperor, Nyx thinks. He might not have felt like he was suited for it, but that didn't mean he hadn't learned how to do it with at least a little skill. In a room full of people who don't know him, he's capable of camouflaging weakness.

Except that one of them does know him. Five is sitting next to him, looking at him with huge thoughtful eyes. She can't remember Ryo's childhood at will, she's told Nyx that herself; but what she has remembered includes Hiro. And she leans over and puts a comforting hand on his arm.

He gives her a quick startled look, eyes wide, and she smiles at him, just a little, in that quiet disarming way she has.

Nyx wonders how often anybody was allowed to touch the emperor.

"Of course we won't," Five says. "Don't worry."

"We'll see about that," Two says, flat—but Nyx doesn't have to calculate anything to know she doesn't mean it, even if she wants Hiro to think she might. And then her gaze flicks from him to Nyx, and she jerks her head toward the door.

 

*

 

Once it's closed again behind them, Two turns to Nyx and crosses her arms. "What do you think?"

Nyx blinks. "I—can't see very far without the rest of the Seers," she says cautiously, but no, she's guessed wrong: Two's already shaking her head.

"That's not what I meant," Two says. "I don't want to know what you see. I want to know what you think."

"Does it matter?" Nyx says after a moment.

She doesn't know what the answer will be.

When she'd first escaped from the Seers, her system had still been full of Shadow. Even by herself, she'd been seeing minutes—hours, sometimes, depending on how much she knew. The calculations are all subconscious, intuition systematized, and in the absence of the Seers' machinery, somewhere else to send the output, she perceives the results as visions. Her mind turns them into something it can understand and process by itself. Back then she'd struggled to control it, to have even the simplest conversations without answering questions that hadn't been asked yet, or making a comment to somebody who wasn't going to be in the room for another fifteen minutes.

But now she barely sees ten seconds ahead at a time, if that. Now she can know people, their habits, the way they think, and still not be sure what they might say next.

She's found she likes it.

Two's mouth quirks. "Three's going to say we should space him and get the hell out of here. Or that we should steal his clothes and then space him. Six is going to say we shouldn't. Five doesn't even think it's an option. And I don't have to ask them, because I know all that already."

"But you aren't sure about me," Nyx says. Funny, that she was just thinking about not always knowing what Two might do next. Seems it's mutual.

"I'm sure about you," Two says evenly, "in that you're on my crew and I trust you, and you get as much of a say as anyone. But we haven't picked up any strays since the time the stray was your brother. And I want to know what you think."

Collecting her own kind of data. Nyx almost laughs. But it's a serious question, and it deserves a serious answer. "You already know that he might be a useful bargaining chip," she says instead, "or that he might have valuable information. But neither one of those things is worth risking the ship or the crew over. You want to know if I think there's something else about him that is, and I'm going to say yes. I think he's a good man. He saved our lives in there, before we saved his." She pauses, and finds herself looking away—and she never would have let herself do that, in prison. But she can let Two see her hesitate and know that Two isn't standing there trying to figure out how to take advantage of her for it.

When she first escaped the Seers, she'd never have believed that—even if she'd seen it coming.

"He isn't Four," Nyx says at last, more quietly. "But whoever's sitting on Zairon's throne right now isn't Four either." She clears her throat, and meets Two's eyes again. "I say he stays, at least until he gives us a reason to think he shouldn't."

Two's looking at her. And she doesn't touch Nyx, doesn't turn gentle with sympathy; but there's something about that steady even look that's comforting anyway. "Okay," Two says, crisp, and opens the door to the mess again.

 

*

 

When Nyx receives the notification of an incoming transmission from the imperial palace, she doesn't accept it.

 

*

 

Ishida Hiro doesn't take Ryo's place on the _Raza_. He couldn't, and he doesn't try to.

Instead he starts to make his own. He spends a lot of time with Five, which Nyx might think was a tactical move—Five's good graces are a comfortable place to be, on this ship—except that it's mostly not his idea. Five just keeps finding him, in the mess or on the bridge, in the ship's lounge, to ask him questions about Four's memories.

And he answers them. He tells her stories about Zairon, about the imperial palace and his tutors and the trouble he got into, the pranks Four used to play on him. It puts a bittersweet look on his face sometimes, to remember those better days; but more often it makes him laugh, makes him relax and smile at Five and offer to tell her another.

By the time Nyx walks in and finds that Six has joined them, that Three's sitting in the opposite corner cleaning his gun and rolling his eyes but also listening, she's had time to realize that it _was_ a tactical move—by Five, not Hiro.

Smart kid.

Hiro knows several drinking games Three's never heard of, and can also read the labels on what turn out to be bottles of sake in the ship's vault, so it doesn't take Three long to declare him "not that bad". Two doesn't talk to him all that much at first, but when she does, Hiro is quiet, focused, respectful; it's easy to tell she appreciates that. Six knows enough about the story—a good man trapped in an unkind system, trying to stay a good man—that he's already on Hiro's side, already won over.

And Nyx—

—avoids him.

It isn't intentional. She tries to be pleasant around him, or at least not unpleasant. She tries to smile when she passes him in the corridors. She just can't figure out what to say to him. Or maybe she has too much to say.

 _Your brother killed my brother. Why could I save you, but not Milo? Why could I save you, but not Four? Why couldn't you have just won your damn war with Pyr and left Four out of it_ —except that isn't fair. Four had chosen to take the imprint back.

None of it is fair. Hiro shouldn't have to answer for any of that. But Nyx wants to make him anyway, because Four's gone and Hiro's here and she wants to _know_.

So she avoids him.

 

*

 

He notices, of course. And at first he doesn't press; but Nyx doesn't need a vision to tell her that sooner or later, they'll have to deal with it.

Once Hiro adjusts to ship's time, he turns out to be an early riser. Nyx picks a day to make sure she is, too, and when she forces herself out of bed and off to the mess for coffee, he's already there.

He offers her a nod and then turns back to his own cup. Probably tea, the bitter green stuff he seems to favor—Nyx still likes being able to make calculations about people, sometimes.

She pours herself a steaming mug of coffee, and then sits down: across from him, instead of at the far end of the table the way she normally would.

He looks up, and she says, as cool as she can make it, "He would have gone back anyway. Even if there weren't a war to win."

A flash of him looking confused, her opening her mouth to clarify—but low probability. It's gone before it even becomes a true vision, blurring away in the face of reality. Which is Hiro looking at her thoughtfully for a moment, and then down at his tea, and then saying, "There is always a war to win on Zairon."

"So he would have gone back anyway," Nyx repeats.

It's not a question, not quite a statement either. She wants to know what he'll say; and she doesn't have quite enough data on him to guess, let alone to see it for herself.

"Yes," Hiro says slowly, and then takes a sip of his tea. "I liked swords because Father was pleased with me when I showed an interest in them. And I liked sparring because Ryo liked it. But I never—I never liked _fighting_. Not the way Ryo does." He shakes his head. "And there's always a war to win on Zairon, when you are the emperor. Ryo's suited for that life in a way I never have been."

"Some might say it's better," Nyx says, "for power to be in the hands of people who don't want it, instead of people who do."

"And sometimes they might be right," Hiro says. "But I—" He shakes his head again. "I was not a good emperor. I should have fought my mother's words, when she lied to me about Ryo; but I don't like fighting, so I believed them instead. Many things would be different now if I hadn't made that mistake.

"Ryo will fight for Zairon, no matter what the cost. If he had killed me in that throne room, he wouldn't have done it for himself, or out of spite or vengeance. He would have done it for Zairon. He would do anything for Zairon, without hesitation." As if to illustrate the difference between them, Hiro pauses; and then he tilts his head and adds, "Whether that will make him a good emperor is for the philosophers and historians to determine. But I think it makes him— _more_ of an emperor than I was."

It's an interesting point, and a thoughtful one. But Nyx barely hears it. "He would do anything," she echoes, and she barely hears her own voice, either; there's something, something about this data Hiro is giving her, about this and about the look that had been on Ryo's face in the throne room—

But no vision comes. It's something too far away, Nyx thinks, too far away and too much, and there are still some variables missing.

She closes her eyes, just to be sure. And then she blinks them open again and looks at Hiro, who's watching her with an uncertain gaze, the pause just a little too long for him not to have noticed it.

"I just wanted to say I don't blame you," Nyx tells him. "For Ryo leaving, or—for any of it. I can't talk to you without talking about that, and I don't want to talk about that right now. But I don't want you to think—"

She hesitates, not sure how blunt to be with this man who doesn't like fighting; and he smiles at her, a little twist of his mouth, and says, "That you're going to stab me in my sleep?"

"Right," Nyx says, and smiles back. "That." And she pauses again, and then adds, careful, "You're on this crew now. You have nothing to fear from us—any of us."

Hiro nods, solemn. "I believe you," he says, and takes another sip of his tea. "Which means I'm safer here, on this ship of thieves and murderers, than I ever have been before in my life."

His tone is wry and a little bewildered, and it makes Nyx smile again to hear it. "I know the feeling," she says, and takes a nice long swallow of steaming coffee.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next piece of data doesn't come for another day or two.

With the blink drive, they can go anywhere—but they need to know where to go. They've agreed that Truffault is the likeliest to help them, but they have to figure out where she is before they can blink there to talk to her about Eos 7.

Except Six doesn't think they should blink at all. "Not where they can see us," he's arguing. "Somewhere close by, fine, and then we can fly in at sub-light—"

"—and get ripped apart by their security," Three says, "great!" and he throws up his hands.

"Maybe Five can disable the system," Six suggests.

"Five's already hacking Mikkei just to get us a location for Truffault," Two says flatly. "They notice, they'll shut her down and fix whatever back door she used, and she might not have time to find another before Truffault's gone anyway."

"I just—" Six says, and then looks away. "I don't think it's a good idea, letting them know we have it."

"They don't even know what it is," Three says. "Reynaud didn't work for them—"

"Yeah, right, and I'm sure they don't have any kind of corporate espionage racket going," Six says, dry. "Look, even if they weren't already aware that it was being developed, they see us use it and they're going to know we've got something incredible. _Four_ wanted to use it to wipe Pyr off the face of the galaxy—what do you think the corporations would do with it, if they got their hands on it?"

"Yeah, except they can't get their hands on it, because we've got the only one," Three says; but to Nyx he sounds suddenly far away, and he says something else after but it's meaningless, blurred.

 _Four wanted to_ —

 _He would do anything_ —

And that look, that look that had flickered across Ishida Ryo's face in the throne room, when Two had looked at him and said, _We have the blink drive. No one can catch us._

"Nyx?"

Nyx blinks. Everyone's moved, but she can't remember them doing it; Two is next to her, now, one hand steady and strong on Nyx's shoulder, and Three and Six are peering at her with concern—badly disguised on Three's part, not disguised at all on Six's.

"Nyx," Two repeats. "You all right?"

"Yes," Nyx says.

"You sure?" Three makes a dubious face. "Because there was some pretty freaky shit going on with your eyes—"

Nyx glances at Two, who doesn't tell Three to shut up or stop exaggerating, and is still looking at Nyx.

It had happened like that sometimes, coming out of the Seers' machine—her mind still frantically working, crunching away at all the information it could remember, even with the rest of that great joined Seer-computer no longer plugged in. The lights had seemed strange, those times, glaring. And Nyx had known without needing a mirror that it was her pupils blowing wide, looking for that future she couldn't quite catch sight of by herself.

But she's been alone for a long time now, and she's better at this than she used to be. She understands what she can do, where intuition and high CPA meet.

And there's still some Shadow in the infirmary.

"I think there's another factor we need to account for," Nyx tells Two—because she doesn't want to say _Four_ when it isn't him, doesn't want to talk about him at all. "And I think I know one way to find out what might happen."

 

*

 

"And you're sure this is a good idea."

Nyx glances up at Two. The hypo's loaded, it's in Nyx's hand; all that's left to do is to press it to her neck and see what she sees.

But Two's mouth is pressed into a flat line. She's standing by the medical bed and looking down at Nyx, and the line of her shoulders is tight with concern.

Nyx imagines being back in prison, being told that one day she'd look at Portia Lin and want to reassure her. She'd probably have laughed.

A lot.

"No," Nyx says, light. "But it's probably not a bad idea. Worst case, it won't work the way I'm hoping. And maybe you'll have to put the rest of this behind a lock." She hadn't taken what Devon had given her; she doesn't know how strong the craving might be, after a full dose. But she'd been up to her neck in Shadow for years, and now she hasn't taken it in months, doesn't even want to. She kicked the habit once. She can kick it again if she has to.

Besides, this is more important.

"And best case," Two says.

"Best case, it helps me see. I can tell you what might happen at Eos 7—or give you a few of the likeliest possibilities, anyway. Without this," and Nyx tips the hypo in Two's direction, "I can't stay under long enough to look that far ahead."

Two looks at her, and then at the hypo. "I don't like this," she says bluntly.

Maybe that should make Nyx angry—Two not trusting her with this, trying to tell her what to do. But she finds herself smiling instead. This is Two looking after her, the way Two looks after everyone on her crew; and Nyx doesn't like taking orders, but—

But Two is her captain, she thinks.

"People take this for fun," she says aloud, tilting the hypo. "It's not going to hurt me—"

"You didn't take it for fun," Two says, low. "I saw Milo. They had you pumped full of it on that ship, strung out."

"Which means," Nyx says carefully, "that one dose this size is nothing." She reaches out with her free hand to touch Two's wrist. "If we go to Eos 7 and there's something waiting for us that we haven't planned for, all of us are in danger—and everyone on that station will be, too. But I can make sure that doesn't happen." She pauses until Two looks at her, and then tilts her head and adds, "You would, if you could."

Two's mouth twists; but she doesn't open it, doesn't argue.

"And I can," Nyx repeats. "I—want to. Maybe I haven't been on this ship as long as the rest of you—"

"No one cares about that," Two interrupts, frowning.

"—but it matters to me," Nyx says over her, "and so do all of you. I _want_ to."

Two stares at her, silent, expression unreadable; and then she puts a hand over Nyx's on her wrist and says, "Okay."

She doesn't let go: not when Nyx lies back, not when the hypo goes in, and her solemn dark eyes are the last thing Nyx sees before the Shadow swallows her down.

 

*

 

Nyx comes back out of it by degrees. The dose she took was enough for a couple hours at most. But part of the reason Shadow's so popular with the recreational crowd, kids in clubs on capital worlds looking to have a good weekend, is that it lets you down easy.

So there's no crash. The visions just get—thinner, further away, a bit at a time; the bed under Nyx isn't there and then is, and slowly becomes _more_ there than it had been, even though that makes no sense. When she's deep in the Shadow-dream, her eyes don't matter: it's all in the mind. But then she feels herself blink. Only feels it—the first couple times, what she's seeing doesn't change.

And then the third time, there's a flicker. The lights in the infirmary—her eyelids.

She'd forgotten she had eyelids.

Then she blinks again, fascinated with it, and somewhere off beside her, Two says, "Nyx?"

"I saw it all," Nyx says, and smiles.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It takes a little longer for her to come down the rest of the way, to be steady on her feet again. But once Two's satisfied that she really is all right, they don't waste time.

Two calls everyone to the mess. And once Nyx has finished explaining what she saw, Ishida Hiro is the first one to nod.

He's not the first one to speak, though. That's Three. "And we're—taking your drug-induced hallucinations seriously?" he says, squinting at her skeptically. "That's a thing we're doing?"

Nyx tries not to roll her eyes, tries to keep her tone calm and level when she says, "They're not hallucinations. They're—projections. What might happen, what's likeliest to happen, given what I know."

"And what's likely to happen is that the emperor of Zairon is going to be on Eos 7?" Six says. "He was here when we found out about the data dump. He _knows_ it's going to explode—"

"He wants it to explode," Hiro says.

Six goes quiet and looks at him: he's still staring up at Nyx, and his gaze is steady and knowing.

"The corporations backing Pyr in the war will have other concerns, then," he adds, so that Nyx doesn't have to—she knows because the Seers knew, because it was part of the data they'd been fed about the state of the galaxy. But he knows because the advisors of the emperor know. "And—"

"The blink drive," Six murmurs.

Two nods sharply. She's standing beside Nyx, arms crossed, mouth pressed into a tight line: she's angry, Nyx thinks, because she liked Four and trusted Four and now Ryo is using that against her. A lot of different things happen on Eos 7, the probabilities there are hard to pick apart; but Ishida Ryo steps onto the _Raza_ looking for that blink drive almost every time.

"He's going to be there because he knows we're going to be there," Two says. "I told him no one could catch us—but he doesn't have to catch us if we fly right into his hands."

"So that's why he let me go," Hiro says, soft.

Five looks at him and bites her lip, and then touches his elbow and says, "I'm sure he was glad to have a reason to take the risk—"

"No," Hiro tells her, with an odd sad smile. "It wasn't a risk. He knew you would be there, and he knew I would be with you. He could kill me then, instead of in the throne room, and know he was safe. And anyone in the court who still thought I was alive and tried to find me—he could wait and watch for them, trap them at his leisure, with no fear they'd succeed."

"Sneaky bastard," Three says, but it doesn't sound as admiring as Nyx might have expected.

"And we can't be sure he's going to blow up the station," Six says. "Sometimes it wasn't him, that's what you said."

"Sometimes a different bomb went off first," Nyx amends. "But I wouldn't count on him leaving it to chance. And he doesn't even need one: the _station_ is a bomb."

Three blinks. "Say what?"

"Anything with a power core can be made to blow itself up," Two says grimly, "if it overloads. The GA's going to be looking for bombs being brought onboard, but even when they don't miss anything—"

"—it's not like they're going to have this conference in the dark," Five concludes, nodding. "They need light, heat, air circulation. There's no way they can just shut down the core the whole time."

"So ... we're fucked," Three says. "Anything we can do about it?"

 

*

 

Not much, is the answer—at least not by themselves.

But Commander Truffault can do two things. She can get Five onto Eos 7 to start figuring out where a bomb might be; and she can tell the GA about the very frightening threats Mikkei has received—from _wanted criminals_ , no less—that talk about the station's power core, in so much detail that they must actually have some kind of inside knowledge of Eos 7, and if Mikkei's representatives are going to be in any danger—

"Of course not," says the GA official on the viewscreen. "If you'll send me the material you've received, I'll forward it to Kierken myself. He _will_ take it into account when he deploys our security forces; I'll give you my word on that, Commander."

"Thank you _so_ much," Truffault tells the woman warmly. "I do appreciate it," and then she terminates the call and swivels around in her chair. "Anything else I can do for you today?"

"Hey, lose the sarcasm, lady," Three says. "We're trying to make sure you don't blow up either."

"Which I would appreciate more if your story were a little less ridiculous," Truffault says, smiling at him widely. "But then I suppose it is the thought that counts."

"Right now I'm kind of thinking I hate you," Three mutters.

"The sentiment is mutual, I assure you," Truffault says breezily. "But I do like not blowing up, so: _is_ there anything else?"

"We'll let you know," Two says.

 

*

 

They split up, when it's time. Five goes onto the station with Truffault, Three and Six sneaking on after to make sure the GA really did beef up security around the station's power core. And Two stays on the _Raza_ with Hiro—and Nyx.

"I want you here," she'd said, grim and flat, when she'd issued the orders. "You said he always comes here—"

"Almost every time," Nyx had confirmed, because it was true. A few paths she'd seen had led elsewhere: sometimes he was too slow, sometimes the _Raza_ fled—sometimes everything blew up, the _Raza_ included, before he even got the chance to come for the drive. But it had been rare. Low probability.

"—and I don't know him anymore," Two had continued, almost managing to look like it hadn't hurt to say it. "I don't know what he might do."

So they've split up, and it's almost anticlimactic. Five doesn't get herself in trouble, at least not right away, and Three and Six manage to avoid setting off any alarms or drawing Kierken's attention. And Two and Hiro and Nyx ... wait.

"They'll be all right," the android offers, in that flat bright way she has—Nyx has actually started to find that tone kind of soothing.

"Yes," Two says, "they will." And her tone is anything _but_ soothing, all iron; but that's a comfort in its own way.

And then their comms crackle, and Five says, "Um, I think I found the bomb."

"Where are you, kid?" Three says instantly.

"No, no, I'm fine, really." Five's voice turns considering. "I think maybe I can space it, if I can just—uh, is this going to hurt you?"

"My damage assessment and notification system was deactivated," says a fainter voice. "It's an extremely powerful device. They couldn't have implanted it safely if I'd been—"

"Wait, another robot?" Three says. "With a _bomb_ in it? Kid—"

"I can get it out of him," Five says firmly. "It wasn't his idea, Three."

"Of course it wasn't _his idea_ , he's a damn machine—"

"So he doesn't deserve to die for it, then," Five snaps.

"You're not going to win this one," Six murmurs—presumably to Three—and then, over Three's frustrated sigh, says more loudly, "No trouble here yet, but we'll keep our eyes peeled. You might not have a lot of time, Five. Better get started."

"Got it," Five says.

And that's when the android looks up and says, "An Ishida shuttle is approaching."

 

*

 

Ryo goes for the engine room—that's what happens in every projection, every time he sets foot on the _Raza_. Two takes the android, tells Hiro to hide, and orders Nyx to stay on the bridge. "If you see anything coming," she says, "more shuttles or something going wrong on the station—in your head or on the sensors—you comm."

"Yes, ma'am," Nyx murmurs, half teasing, and is rewarded with a wry flash of teeth, a quick sharp smile.

She does keep an eye on the readouts, the _Raza_ 's screens and feeds and monitors. But she can't help keeping an ear on her comm, too. It's easy to tell when Two catches up to Ryo, even before she says his name aloud; she goes quiet, so suddenly and thoroughly that after listening to that silence for a moment, Nyx finds herself holding her breath.

There's a low murmur across the comm—Ryo's voice, but he's standing too far away from Two for Nyx to hear him. "Emperor," Two says in reply, tone measured, and then, "I know why you're here. And if you want the blink drive, you'll have to take it."

Ryo says something else, and then there's another sound—a blow landing? Another, and a huff of breath from Two; Nyx strains her ears for a grunt or a cry, something to tell her who might be losing the fight.

And that's how Captain Han-Shireikan sneaks up on her.

There must be something, some tiny scuff or scrape, some fragment of data to absorb: Nyx throws herself to one side without even knowing why she's doing it, and Captain Han-Shireikan's sword strikes the console with a clang.

She's an important figure in Zairon's imperial court, and she was even before Nyx escaped from the Seers—she'd been included in Nyx's calculations. As the captain of the emperor's guard, there had always been a good chance that she would come aboard alongside Ryo. But that she'd leave him behind to come looking for Nyx? There'd been no reason to think it would happen.

Which means there's something about her that Nyx doesn't know.

She doesn't speak: her eyes are dark, sharply focused, and she swings that sword like it's the only thing that matters. Like she's here for a reason.

There's something about her that Nyx doesn't know; but she was trained in the palace, the same way as Four—Ryo. She'd probably sparred with him all the time when she was younger. There's an even better chance than usual that Nyx will see her moves coming, and Nyx's usual chance of seeing things coming is pretty damn good.

But the Shadow's worked its way through her system; she's back to what's become her usual margin, five to ten seconds at the absolute most.

Even if she'd known everything she needed to know about Han-Shireikan, there's too much time between the sting of the blade and the first stutter of weakness in Nyx's legs. She could never have seen it in time.

"What—" she manages, too loud, breath catching in her throat.

Over the comm she can hear Two, still fighting with Ryo—but then there's a thump, a low pained sound, and Two says, "Nyx. Nyx?"

"Two," Nyx says.

Han-Shireikan is saying something about poison, a look of cold satisfaction on her face that almost constitutes enough data for Nyx to understand this. But Nyx's throat is closing up, she can't feel her feet. _Two_ , she tries to say again, but she's not sure anything comes out; and then she stumbles, wavering. It feels like the deck moves, rising up to catch her when she falls—but that doesn't make sense. Really, really low probability.

"Nyx!" Two says, somewhere, and then there's nothing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Nyx wakes up.

She discovers, dimly, that she wasn't expecting to. Poison, Han-Shireikan had said, and whatever it was that had been missing, Nyx did know enough about Han-Shireikan to be sure she wouldn't waste time with anything less than fatal.

Which means—

Nyx blinks, and somewhere off to one side, Three says, "Oh, hey, Sleeping Beauty, nice of you to join us."

"Shut up," Two says easily, from much closer. She's leaning over Nyx, one hand on Nyx's shoulder and the other steady, warm, against Nyx's neck; and she's looking Nyx right in the eye, unflinching. Like maybe there's something she's trying to make a point of not flinching about. "You okay?"

"Fine," Nyx says. "I think." There's still something wrong with her legs, her feet, the tips of her fingers. But even as she lies there thinking it, something's changing: her hands almost _fizz_ , and then the numbness, the faint swollen feeling, the tiny crackling pains, all go away. Like she's being fixed. Like she's being repaired.

"I get beaten up all the time," Three is grumbling. "Hell, I got _shot_ , and you never kissed me better."

"You didn't need me to. Get poisoned and we'll talk," Two says, not looking away from Nyx.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You could have just shot her up with some blood like we did for you—"

"There were no hypo-injectors accessible from the bridge," the android says calmly. "Time was limited. Without any other obvious way to introduce Two's upgraded nanites into Nyx's system, it seemed plausible that the mucous membranes of the human mouth—"

"Please stop talking," Three says.

"And you're really okay?" Five says.

Nyx blinks again, and turns her head.

She's still lying on the deck in the bridge. Han-Shireikan is gone; Two's kneeling next to Nyx, the android standing behind her and looking down with that placid almost-smile. Three and Six, Hiro and Five, are arranged in a loose half-circle around Nyx's feet, and standing next to Five is a narrow young man with serious eyes and a clean-edged, gleaming hole in his torso.

"We saved the day," Five adds. "Which was awesome! This is Arrian—he was the bomb, until I took it out of him."

"Which is seriously fucking creepy," Three interjects, making a face. "You're a genius, congratulations, now close his guts back up already."

"I will, don't worry," Five says to Arrian, patting him on the shoulder.

"I wasn't worried," Arrian tells her, soft and sincere, and she beams at him before turning back to Nyx.

"But he's fine. And so are you—right?"

"Yes," Nyx says, with a little more confidence. She can feel all the way down to her knees, now, and it's even easier to breathe than it was when she first woke up, some kind of tightness being chipped away around her ribs by—

By Two's nanites, apparently.

Nyx doesn't know what Two will do; but that's all right. She puts a hand over Two's where it rests on her shoulder anyway. "Thank you," she says.

Two looks down at her expressionlessly for a long moment. And then the corner of Two's mouth quirks up. "Wasn't a hardship," she murmurs.

And hearing her say that washes through Nyx almost as warm as the nanites feel working away on her feet, almost as bright as discovering she'd woken up instead of dying. Four's gone, Ryo is after them; he won't thank them for stopping him from taking the blink drive, or for saving Eos 7. But the rest of the crew's alive, and together, and Two's kissed Nyx and smiled about it.

Nyx might not know what's coming next; but that's all right, too.

She'll see it for herself.

 

 


End file.
